


it's rock and roll (kind of love)

by alesford



Series: our family of choice [14]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: 80's Music, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, F/F, Families of Choice, Family Shenanigans, Fluff, Gift Fic, Light Angst, Sorry Not Sorry, Tribute Fic, the notes are long, they start a band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 20:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15275778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: Belle waits patiently, watching the grin spread across the older girl’s face. More than a minute passes and Belle’s patience wanes. “What is it?” she finally asks.Alice grins even bigger and belly flops onto Belle’s bed. “We’re going to start a band.” She says it like it’s the best idea that she’s ever had. Her blue eyes hold a glimmer of excitement, waiting for her cousin — her best friend — to say something.ORa tribute to the 80’s mixtape AU by gilligankane and thegaysmurf





	it's rock and roll (kind of love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gilligankane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/gifts), [TheGaySmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGaySmurf/gifts).
  * Inspired by [it's like i wrote every note with my own fingers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11948871) by [gilligankane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane). 



> It’s the last flashback Friday, folks. I don’t know about you, but I am most definitely going to miss it. It’s been a highlight of my week, an inspiration to start writing again, a re-introduction and introduction to some amazing tunes, and a reminder of just what good writing can do for the soul. Like many of you, I was taken by Nicole Haught and her passion for music and perfectly cuffed jeans and rolled t-shirts, flannel, and a practical but stylish pair of boots. I fell in love with her relationship with Wynonna and came to think of her and Waverly’s journey as Relationship Goals™. Natecedes became the absolute best original character/canon character pairing. Curtis became the uncle/father figure to keep us all on track. And neon lights became a guide to lead us home.
> 
> There are so many more things that I could say about the world that they built and what it means to me. I’m sure you can find my wall of text comments on some of the works. Pirate and Smurf have taken us on such an exhilarating ride, and I am so, so grateful for it.
> 
> Several stories in this series have already been gifted to them because of what their works mean to me. But this story — this story is dedicated to them and to the alternate universe that they created and shared with us. It nowhere near does justice for the time and effort and love that they put into each and every one of those thirty-seven (soon to be thirty-eight) parts. For what will be over 590,000 words. This is for them.
> 
> A tribute to the 80’s mixtape alternate universe.
> 
> Any and all mistakes are my own.
> 
> This takes place during the summer before Belle enters grade seven and Alice enters grade eight.

 

 

**it’s rock and roll (kind of love)**

_as long as we're together,_  
_the rest can go to hell_  
_i absolutely love you_  
_though we're absolute beginners  
\- ‘absolute beginners’ by david bowie_

 

 

 

**_i can’t hold back_ **

 

It’s the third day of summer break before Belle starts _junior high_ , and she’s already two pages into a notebook with questions to ask Alice about what it’s like and what she can expect. She hears heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and she thinks it’s probably her mom checking in on her during her lunch break.

It isn’t, though. Because her bedroom door swings open hard enough that it rebounds off the wall. Belle winces and her cousin looks apologetic, quickly checking to make sure she hasn’t damaged the paneling.

“All good,” she announces after her inspection. “Sorry ‘bout that, but this calls for a grand entrance.”

  
Mom always said that Alice has her mother’s flair for the dramatics.

  
Belle waits patiently, watching the grin spread across the older girl’s face. More than a minute passes and Belle’s patience wanes. “What is it?” she finally asks.

Alice grins even bigger and belly flops onto Belle’s bed. “We’re going to start a _band_.” She says it like it’s the best idea that she’s ever had. Her blue eyes hold a glimmer of excitement, waiting for her cousin — her best friend — to say something.

Belle turns the idea over in her head. Neither of them know how to read music, let alone play any instruments. But she’s good at photography and she’s been practicing drawing, so she figures music can’t be that different of an art. And Alice has that look of intense determination that she’s only ever seen on Wynonna and Waverly. _An Earp thing_ , she concludes. It isn’t the worst idea she’s had.

  
(That award would probably go to last winter when Alice suggested they build a toboggan obstacle course down the biggest hill on the homestead. They both climbed onto the old sled and Alice pushed them off.

Steering a toboggan through an obstacle course is not one of their fortes.

They crashed into a tree. The sled snapped and they went tumbling into a snowdrift. Waverly found them stripped of their wet clothes and shivering under blankets by the wood stove, only a little worse for wear. She yelled for a brief second before lecturing them about _not being idiots_. And then she made them hot cocoa with marshmallow cream.

Still, it was a pretty terrible idea.)

  
“So what do you think?” Alice prompts when Belle is quiet for just a little too long.

The truth is, Belle would follow Alice to the ends of the earth if asked. She knows the same is true for Alice. They get on together like gravy and mashed potatoes or bacon and eggs. _Ride or die_ , Wynonna had said once. _Like Haught and me._

So Belle matches Alice’s earlier grin and says, “Guess we’re starting a band.”

Alice hoots and cheers loud enough that when Nicole does walk through the door at that moment, she takes the steps two at a time to make sure neither of the girls are dying.

 

-

 

**_new way to love_ **

 

They’ve been at this for a whole two hours. Trying to decide what kind of music they’ll learn to play. Belle is stretched out sideways on her bed with Alice sitting on the floor next to her, their heads almost touching.

“What about somebody like Billie Holiday?” she suggests, running out of ideas.

“No,” Alice mutters, scrolling through the playlists on Belle’s tablet. “It has to be _retro_ not ancient. We need something old but not too old. Maybe older than my mom. Like from the _eighties_.”

And Belle remembers her tenth birthday. Remembers skipping school with her moms and driving to the city and going to the most awesome camera store ever. She remembers dinner and dessert — steamed buns and curry satay with vermicelli noodles and roasted strawberry buttermilk ice cream.

She remembers her mama reaching for her mom’s hand across the console of the old pickup truck, holding on all the way to Calgary as they listened to music from—

Belle lunges forward and grabs her tablet from Alice’s hands, ignoring the indignant, _“Hey!”_ She scrolls up to the letter ‘ _M_ ’, half-wondering in the back of her mind how Alice had made it all the way to ‘ _X_ ’ without finding something she liked. “Here,” she says, tapping the playlist that she thinks would be perfect and handing it back to her cousin.

“ _‘Mom’s old school playlist’_?” Alice reads and it sounds like a question laced with skepticism. She chooses a song anyways, and it starts with drums and somebody playing the guitar.

 

 _Maybe we don't need to share the same roof, maybe  
_ _If you really love me, you don't need me 'round for proof, baby_

 

The beat is catchy and Belle is grinning and Alice is bobbing her head with the music. They listen to it all the way through until the final, ‘ _We’re gonna find a new way to love_ ’ that’s followed by more guitar and more drums and ends with a long chord and a cymbal crash.

“This is _perfect_ ,” Alice breathes and they queue up another song.

 

 _It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down  
_ _I had the radio on, I was drivin’..._

 

-

 

**_africa_ **

 

“You guys want to start a band.”

They go to Wynonna first because, as Alice points out, she still dresses like some sort of rocker chick and she’s the one that got her dad hooked on Led Zeppelin. If anybody will support their dreams of starting a rock band, it’s her.

“Yeah. An eighties cover band!” Belle says excitedly.

Wynonna’s face twists into something like a grimace. “The eighties? You really are Haught’s kid.”

Alice crosses her arms and glares at her mother in the way only a newly minted teenager can. “It’s good music, mom,” she huffs. And she’s _thirteen_ this year and it’s time to really start working on her image as one of the cool kids before she gets to senior high in a couple years.

Her mom holds up her hands defensively. “I never said it wasn’t,” she says. “Who do you think got your Aunt Nicole into it?” Wynonna curls the fingers of her right hand and points her thumb at herself, mouthing the word, ‘ _Me_ ’. “So what do you need? Money for sex? Drugs? You’ve got the rock’n’roll part.”

Belle can’t help but giggle and she presses her face to Alice’s shoulder to stifle her laughs. Alice just rolls with it, though; her mom is silly sometimes, but it’s _right_ and _good_ and _home_. Aunt Nicole once told her that her mom communicates her love a little differently than most. With jokes and sass but also weathering the storm right alongside you. She told her that her mom is one of the most loyal, protective, and brave people she has ever known in her life. Wynonna fights for the ones she loves, even when she doesn’t think she’s a hero.

“We just need you to talk to Mr. Foster at the music store,” Alice tells her mom. “The website says you can rent instruments and there’s a room in the back, too, to practice in.” She pauses, wrapping an arm around Belle’s shoulders after she pulls out of her gigglefit. “We’ll take the money, though.”

And Wynonna laughs because Alice is definitely her daughter, and it still amazes her everyday that her love for this one person keeps growing when her heart is already so full. Definitely still the coolest thing she’s ever done.

“Your dad can take you down to the store in a few hours. Foster likes Doc more than me, anyways.”

It sounds like a good story for another day.

“You’re the best, Aunt Nonna,” Belle says, leaning comfortably into Alice’s side. “We’re gonna be the best band ever.”

“We’ll thank you when we win our first Grammy.”

 

-

 

**_hold on loosely_ **

 

Doc talks to Mr. Foster and makes arrangements for them to practice there on Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. There’s already a drum set and a keyboard in the practice room, so all they have to rent is a guitar and a bass. The perfect setup for a band.

Now all the band needs is two more members and a bitchin’ name.

Belle is taking notes on the pros and cons of each of their friends as bandmates. The chemistry has to be good, she knows, or it won’t work out and they’ll split apart like Survivor did after they released _Too Hot to Sleep_ . Getting this right is _vitally_ important.

Alice knows this, too. She had suggested Greg and Vanessa, two of her friends from school, and another girl named Jamie Dudley, who socked Bradley James in the face last year for calling Alice a bastard’s kid. Belle listed Mateo and some girl who lived down the street named Danielle or Denise or something. The only things Alice can remember about her is that she’s actually kind of mean and laughs at the wrong moments.

“Do you wanna pick one friend to ask and I’ll pick the other?” Alice suggests. She’s lying on the floor of Belle’s bedroom, tapping out a beat on her thigh to the 38 Special album playing through Belle’s tablet.

They’ve been listening to Nicole’s playlist nonstop, adding their own song finds and trying to pick out the ideal first song to learn.

“Maybe we should just go with Greg and Vanessa,” Belle mumbles around the end of the pen in her mouth. “I probably should get to know some more people in junior high.”

Alice isn’t opposed, of course. They’re her two closest friends after Belle. It’s then that she comes to the realization that Belle really doesn’t have anybody else besides Mateo.

  
(She’s not counting Darla. The girl is mean and has no business being around her cousin.)

  
Because Belle has always had her nose in a book when it comes to school. She reads at lunch and on the playground and sometimes while they’re walking home. She’s always been more interested in fictional characters than the people outside of her immediate circle of love and security and family. And Alice usually chalked it up to her just being a bookworm, but she’s older now and she sees it now. Belle’s uncertainty about strangers who could hurt her.

She sits up from the floor, crossing her legs at her ankles and leaning back on her hands. “We’ll ask Greg and Vanessa, and if one of them isn’t interested, we’ll ask Mateo.”

Belle nods. “I’m amenable to that.”

“I don’t know what that word means, but I think you’re agreeing with me.”

“Whatever you want, Alice.”

 

-

 

**_faithfully_ **

 

Greg and Vanessa agree to join their band the Friday before their first practice session at the music store.

“Meet us at Shorty’s in an hour?” Alice speaks into the cell phone she got for her birthday. “We’ll show you some of the music we like, and I think I found the song I want us to learn first.”

Belle can’t hear whatever else is said over the phone, but when Alice hangs up and joins her on the sofa there’s a wide grin on her face and enthusiasm in her eyes.

“We’re ready to rock.”

Already Belle is tapping out a message to her moms on her tablet, but she asks to be sure, “Shorty’s in an hour?”

“Yeah. Vanessa’s sister is going to give them a ride on her way to work. I figure we can leave in thirty minutes and walk.”

“Let me go get my knapsack and some snacks, and I’ll be ready to go whenever you are.”

Belle takes the steps two at a time and grabs her backpack from the floor near her closet door. It’s mostly empty now that school’s over. Just pens and pencils and some sticky post-it tabs. She grabs her notebook off her desk, the one that she’d been writing questions in before Alice had burst into her room. It’s got more of her notes about the band, the songs they like and the song they picked. Some ideas for names, since every rock group needs a good name.

She drops the book she’s been reading into the bag, just in case she needs a distraction or an acceptable way to get some privacy and solitude. She already keeps spare earbuds in the front pouch. Back downstairs, she slides her tablet between the notebook and the short novel before looping around the sofa and into the kitchen. There’s still an orange in her snack basket, so she deposits that into the bottom of the bag before fishing in the lazy susan for a small tupperware container.

“Perfect,” she murmurs to herself when she finds the one that usually goes in her lunchbox. She fills it with pretzel sticks, snapping on the lid and making sure it’s secure before she adds that to the bag, too.

“Ready when you are,” she says, stepping back into the living room where Alice is playing a game on her mobile.

Alice glances up from her phone. “We still have like twenty minutes before we need to leave.”

Belle glances at the plain Timex on her wrist and goes, “Oh. Yeah.” She settles onto the couch and digs for her earbuds in the front pouch and grabs her tablet from the main compartment. Instead of reading, she starts up her mom’s playlist again, smiling when R.E.O. Speedwagon starts up with _New Way to Love._

Four songs into a random shuffle of the playlist, Alice taps her on the shoulder. “Ready?” she asks, jerking her chin toward the front door.

She nods, returning the items to their proper place and tugging both straps over her shoulders. Alice locks the door behind them and they start off in the direction of Main Street. They talk about nothing in particular for most of the way. School, music, Shorty’s, the new vegetarian restaurant that opened near the edge of town that Waverly keeps talking about.

They’re almost to Shorty’s when Alice shrugs out of her flannel shirt and ties it around her waist without stopping. Belle looks at her curiously. “Why do you wear two shirts if you’re just going to take one off?” she asks, re-adjusting the straps of her backpack that keep sliding down her shoulders. She stops to tug on the nylon hanging near her hips to tighten her the shoulder straps, satisfied when everything stays snug as she skips to catch up to her best friend.

Alice casts a sidelong glance to make sure that Belle is back at her side. “Because it looks cool,” she tells her. “And I dunno. You never know when you might need another shirt. What if you get cold? Or you get mustard on your shirt?” She shrugs. Belle shrugs back. “Why do you bring a backpack almost everywhere we go?”

Belle shoots her a look because she _knows_ the reason why. She’s never had to say it out loud, but they’ve been best friends for almost _seven years_. “You know why,” she says instead because she’s not sure that she wants to say her reasons, to give them life beyond the locked compartment in a far corner of her mind.

But Alice doesn’t say anything. She just waits in silence as they continue to walk. It’s only another two blocks to Shorty’s, and Belle thinks if she can ignore the awkward silence for that distance, she won’t have to answer the question. It twists and writhes in her chest like a thing trying to constrict around her heart and her lungs because she knows. She _knows_ that she doesn’t need it anymore. Doesn’t need to carry her backpack everywhere that she goes without her moms or Doc or Dolls or Wynonna. Jeremy and Mr. Nedley, too. She doesn’t need to do it anymore.

Because she’s safe. She’s safe and secure and she has a family that loves her with two moms and a crazy aunts and three uncles — four if you count Nedley. More if you count family outside of Purgatory. She has a cousin who’s like a sister who also happens to be her best friend, and there’s always food on the table and books to read and heat in the house in the coldest of winter. She’s _safe_.

“It’s just… hard,” she whispers, coming to a stop.

Alice walks four paces ahead before noticing that Belle isn’t beside her anymore. She turns around, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jean shorts and walks back the distance between them.

Belle’s shoulders are hunched. The way they used to when she first came to live with Nicole and Waverly, after… after. Like when all she wanted was to curl into herself, become invisible and hide away because if nobody could see her then nobody could hurt her.

Alice doesn’t touch her, doesn’t try to sling an arm around her and comfort her that way. She stands close, though, close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating from her cousin’s body. She stays there, still, solid, and present. An anchor in the storm. And she waits. She waits because Belle is her person. Ride or die, her mom always says.

“I know I don’t need to… not anymore,” Belle says after a long pause. “It’s like a safety blanket, you know?”

And Alice nods. Because she does know — knows what it means for Belle. Because she knows that Nicole found her hiding under a kitchen sink, clutching that ratty old blanket with pigeons on it; the one that she still keeps at the foot of her bed.

“It isn’t the backpack. It’s… it’s what’s inside.” They’ve stopped on the sidewalk in front of the Moore’s house where some sort of weed with purple flowers pushes up through the concrete. Belle’s eyes focus on the almost violet blooms as she pulls her arms loose from the straps of her knapsack. She takes a seat in the middle of the walkway, resting the bag in her lap as she sits cross-legged. Alice lowers herself to the ground, mirroring Belle. “I mean, you know that, right? You know?”

It isn’t a question about Alice knowing that particular reason; it’s a question about Alice knowing Belle. It’s about Belle’s uncertainty, wondering if maybe the two of them aren’t as close as she believes. She needs to know if Alice understands. If she really understands and is still here anyways, sitting next to her on a sidewalk during an Albertan summer.

“You know?”

Alice smiles at her, soft and tender, and she nods. “I know,” she says, and Belle breathes a little easier. “I know.”

Belle chews at her bottom lip, and she remembers when she first met Alice. Remembers her thought about trying to be brave, at least for a moment. How one moment stretched into two into an evening. Because Alice looked at her kindly and waited so patiently and never once called her stupid like her papa used to do. She’s older now and braver, too.

So she tugs at the zipper of the main compartment of her backpack and begins to remove the items systematically, one by one.

Her notebook. Her tablet. A copy of Jerry Spinelli’s _Stargirl_. An orange. A small, plastic container with pretzel sticks inside.

The items are arranged neatly on the concrete between the two girls. The tablet on top of the notebook and _Stargirl_ atop it. The orange and the pretzels centered on the book’s cover. “My notebook has a calendar in it, which matches the one on my tablet. It also has all the phone numbers for mom and mama and Wynonna and Dolls. Even for Mr. Nedley and the sheriff’s station.” Belle runs her fingers along the spine of the notebook. “It means that I can always reach somebody if I’m ever in trouble. If I ever need something or need help. Mama says I’ll never be alone, not really.”

She taps the protective cover on her tablet. “It has everything that my notebook has, but it syncs to the Cloud and my moms can change it, so I know what’s going on. It helps. Not to have too many surprises. And it has my music and pictures of all of us. Our family.”

Alice knows which photograph is Belle’s favorite. She had learned to use the timer on her mama’s phone to take the picture, since she wasn’t quite sure she could get it right with her old Minolta. It’s the one she took last year at Moose Lake. The one from Wynonna’s fortieth birthday where all of them are crammed tight into the frame, the lake and trees and mountains in the background. Nicole had swung Belle up onto her shoulders and Wynonna had done the same with Alice. Waverly had her arm around Nicole’s waist and Doc had a hand on Wynonna’s shoulder. Jeremy gave the Vulcan salute from his place beside Waverly, and Dolls just smiled bright and wide next to Doc.

Belle had managed to catch the moment when she and Alice high fived, grinning at each other  from what felt like such a great height.

It’s a good picture and it’s Alice’s favorite, too. She has a copy framed and on her bedside table. It makes her smile every morning when she wakes up.

“What about _Stargirl_?” Alice asks, pointing at the short novel.

“I like having a book with me. It gives me something to do and if I’m feeling uncomfortable, it’s easier to find a quiet corner and read than to sit by myself without anything to do. And I like to read. You know that.”

Alice nods. “I do know that. I do know you, Belle. You’re my best friend, okay? You’re family. _Ohana_.”

“And family means nobody gets left behind.”

Belle starts methodically returning her possessions to the correct place in her backpack. Alice watches, patiently waiting until the orange is dropped back inside the bag, and stands.

“Think Doc will give us milkshakes?” Belle asks as Alice helps pull her to her feet.

“I bet he’ll even give us strawberry ones.”

And Belle smiles at that because she knows Alice will give her dad puppy eyes until he relents and brings them two glasses filled with creamy, strawberry goodness. Because Alice knows her and she knows Alice.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to learn that song?” Belle wonders aloud as they start walking towards Shorty’s again. This band is Alice’s thing and Belle really doesn’t know a thing about _playing_ music, so she doesn’t really know what’s to come. She doubts it’s going to be as easy as Alice seems to think it will be, but it’s like what Aunt Wynonna said. Ride or die.

“Maybe a month? Two months? It’s only one song and it doesn’t have to be _exactly_ like they play it. How hard can it be?”

“Can I play the bass?” Belle kicks at a beer can littering the sidewalk. It rolls forward, _clank_ , _clank_ , _clank_ ing. She figures that with four strings, it has to be easier to learn than the other instruments.

“Sure. I call drums, though. Greg said he took piano lessons for like two years, so he can at least read some music.”

“Does Vanessa know how to play the guitar?”

Alice shakes her head. “Don’t think so. We’ll all learn together. Dad said he knows a little guitar but he hasn’t played in like… over a century.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re supposed to tell Vanessa and Greg that your dad was born in the nineteenth century.”

Her comment earns her a flick to the ear, which she returns with a punch to Alice’s shoulder. “Stop being a dumbass.”

“Stop being such an asshat,” Belle quips.

They walk another two blocks in silence before Belle bumps her shoulder against Alice’s.

She’s tall for her age, she knows. Once she had access to three meals a day with actual nutritional value, she’d made up for being on the small side and started to shoot up like a beanstalk. Mama guessed she’d be as tall as mom, not that either of them really knew Janey or Glen Fuller before… before. And anyways, Belle is a Haught now for almost four years running. She’s proud to say her mom’s sheriff and her mama’s a researcher for a special division working out of the Sheriff’s Department. She’s happy to introduce her as a Haught, even if her aunt occasionally calls her, _Haught Bologna_.

  
(It isn’t her fault that her birth parents gave her a stupid name.)

  
Alice shoots her a grin and hip checks her back.

Friends, family. Love and security.

 

-

 

**_don’t you (forget about me)_ **

 

Belle and Alice slurp their strawberry milkshakes, both intently staring at Greg and Vanessa on the bench opposite them in the booth. Each has an earbud in, shifting uncomfortably under the Haught-Holliday gaze.

“Can you guys, like, look somewhere else? It’s creepy,” Vanessa grumbles.

Greg bobs his head in agreement. “Like axe murderer creepy.”

Neither of the girls look away. “We’re trying to gauge your reaction to the song,” Alice says plainly. She sucks a mouthful of cold ice cream through her straw before her eyes bug out and she grabs at her forehead with her hands. “Crap! Brain freeze!”

Belle rolls her eyes and grabs Alice’s milkshake to slide it away from the girl’s flailing arms until the brain freeze subsides. “You’re an idiot,” she says, jabbing her elbow into Alice’s side.

Alice swings her elbow out in retaliation as she recovers. “Well, you’re weaksauce,” she retorts, yanking her milkshake back in front of her hard enough that some of the melted ice cream sloshes over the side and onto the table.

“Shit-eater!”

“Butt-muncher!”

Vanessa’s palm slams down on the table with a reverberating _thump_ that makes it wobble on its uneven legs. “Can you two shut it? We’re trying to listen!”

They scowl but they do cease their bickering. Instead of glaring at their friends across the table, they take to a staring contest with each other, still sipping at their milkshakes. Belle narrows her eyes. She refuses to back down from this challenge even if she’s never beat Alice before.

“You’re gonna lose this time,” she growls under her breath. She draws the red and white paper straw back into her mouth and sucks at the ice cream at the bottom of the glass.

Alice takes that moment to open her eyes comically wide, pulling a face by going cross-eyed with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. It’s impossible not to laugh, especially when she used to make that face when they were little and Belle needed cheering up.

It makes Belle snort. This plus ice cream in her mouth equals strawberry milkshake spraying out of her nose and dribbling onto her shirt.

“Shit!” Alice jumps backwards out of the booth to avoid the mess.

Belle coughs and gags. “Owwww,” she whines, pinching at her nose and reaching for a napkin to try to wipe herself off.

Greg puts his head in his hands and tries to focus on the song that’s playing in his ear. Vanessa just sighs and leans into the squishy back of the booth.

Doc wanders over with a wet rag and a resigned look on his face. “You two,” he murmurs. “Just like your mamas.” He wipes away the melted shake that Alice spilled earlier before moving on to the mess on the booth. “Alice, why don’t you go to the washroom with your cousin and help her clean herself up. Let her wear that extra shirt around your waist, hmm?”

Alice takes another long slurp of her own milkshake, emptying the glass before circling around her father back toward the booth. Belle scoots off the bench, purposefully stumbling into Alice's side with another gag-snort as she tastes strawberry in the back of her throat and feels it continue to burn in her nose.

"Gross," Alice mumbles as they walk toward the bathrooms.

She washes her hands first, trying to remove what stickiness she can before stepping into a stall and stripping off her shirt. It falls to the floor and she says, “Flannel?” Alice’s blue and black flannel comes halfway over the door to the stall and Belle pulls it the rest of the way. She buttons it up all the way to the collar and it fits pretty well.

Belle steps out of the stall, grabbing her dirty shirt off the floor. “Good?” she asks.

“Let me roll up your sleeves,” Alice tells her. “It’s summer and it looks cool anyways.” And Belle nods and holds out her right arm first, letting Alice grip the fabric and fold it back neatly once and then twice, and again until it comes up past her elbows. She does the same to the other side, making sure the rolls are equal in width and fall to the same point on her arms.

“Good?” Belle looks at herself in the mirror once she’s finished.

Alice nods her head in approval. “Good.”

They walk side by side back into the main part of the bar. Doc takes the shirt from Belle as he passes by them, telling her that he’ll make sure to wash it and give it back to one of her mothers.

When they return to the booth, Greg and Vanessa are listening to the song again for probably the third time. Doc has taken away their milkshake glasses and left them with a clean table and a basket of fries in the center to share.

This time, they wait patiently and without staring for the song to end. “Well?” they question simultaneously.

They remove their earbuds before responding. “Cool,” Greg says at the same time Vanessa whoops, “Awesome!”

The four of them share a grin.

“‘Clutch’,” Alice tells them. “They said things like, ‘That’s so clutch’ and ‘Aces’.”

“‘Tubular’, too,” Belle adds helpfully. When both Greg and Vanessa give them blank stares, she explains, “We looked up eighties slang on the internet. Alice said it’s important to play the part.”

“It was clutch,” Greg amends.

“Totally tubular,” Vanessa agrees with a nod.

“ _Aces_. Now all we need is a band name. Belle and I had a few ideas, but we weren’t sure what’s good.”

Belle unzips the backpack beside her in the booth and pulls out her notebook, flipping to a color-tabbed page. “The names we came up with are ‘Alice and Aces’, ‘The Haught-Holliday Band’, ‘Homestead Heroes’, and the ‘Peacemakers’.”

“Isn’t Peacemaker the name of your mom’s old gun?” Greg asks, popping a french fry into his mouth.

“It’s a family heirloom,” Alice says with a shrug. “It’ll be mine one day. Hopefully not for a long time.”

“I kind of like ‘Homestead Heroes’ the most,” Belle says. “What do you guys think?”

Vanessa knits her brows. “They’re all kind of… eh?” she says hesitantly. “Aren’t we supposed to be a retro band?”

“‘Eat My Shorts’,” Greg says suddenly. “John Bender says it in _The Breakfast Club_ and isn’t that supposed to be in the eighties?”

“‘Eat My Shorts’,” Alice repeats, mulling it over. “John Bender was the cool kid, right?”

“He was the bad boy.”

Alice flaps her hand. “Same thing.” She hums, thoughtful in a performative sort of way. Her mother’s daughter and all that. ‘Eat My Shorts’. I like it. Everybody in favor, say ‘Aces’.”

All four voices come together as one. “ _Aces_.”

 

-

 

**_let’s get rocked_ **

 

Greg brings sheet music and tab that he found on the internet. “I don’t think it’s exactly like the song but it’ll at least give us some idea so we don’t have to figure it all out by ear. That’d take us forever.”

It’s more forethought than either Alice or Belle had.

He passes out the printed sheets of paper to each of them, each copy a little different than the others. Belle studies the tab for the bass part, glancing back and forth between it and the papers in Vanessa’s hands. “How do you read this?” she asks.

“It’s called tab. Each line is a string and the number is the fret you’re supposed to hold down. A fret is—”

“She knows what a fret is,” Alice interrupts. She’s trying and only sort of maybe succeeding in twirling the drumsticks through her fingers. “She spent all last night Googling information about guitars and basses. It’s all she talked about on the way here.”

Granted, Doc had driven them and it hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes to get from Belle’s house to the music store, so it wasn’t an incessantly long time to listen to facts and figures about the instruments. Some of it was actually kind of interesting.

“I don’t know how what a fret is,” Vanessa mumbles and Greg takes the time to explain it to her.

Belle is already trying her hand at reading the tab, pressing down on the strings and strumming — just like she had seen in all of the YouTube videos she watched. That’s all they do the first day, pick and pluck and tap away at their instruments, trying to figure out what exactly they’re doing. Greg walks Vanessa through the names of the strings more than once, while Belle makes it through the first five bars of the song without any of the right melody to her notes. And Alice? Alice is experimenting in making as much noise as she can between the bass drum and the snare and the hi-hat and the toms and the cymbals.

She can hear the trainwreck coming.

 

-

 

**_the stroke_ **

 

They practice and practice and practice. For two months they practice twice a week at Mr. Foster’s music store.

Alice breaks four pairs of drumsticks, one of which snaps while she’s banging a collection of pots and pans on the kitchen floor of the homestead like a small child prepared to annoy the crap out of her parents. She sticks her earbuds in her ears and cranks up the music and tries her hardest to keep the beat along with Steve Brookins and Jack Grondin, even if she isn’t really sure who is playing what and why 38 Special even needed two drummers.

After the second week of her clanging, Wynonna hides every stock pot and saucepan they own and refuses to tell anybody where she squirreled them away. They eat more takeaway from the restaurants around Purgatory than when Wynonna was pregnant, and the folks at the diner ask if their kitchen caught fire or something.

With a mouthful of burger, Wynonna tells them, “My child is an evil drummer.” Doc just shakes his head at the waitstaff, hoping they know better than to inquire further. All the while, Alice continues to tap out a beat on the green formica tabletop.

Between their practices and her catching up on school material that she would have learned in grade six, Belle reads more about bass guitars than she probably needs to know in order to play one.

  
(Did you know that the first bass guitar was invented in the 1930’s but didn’t become mass produced until the 1950’s? Or that fingerless fretboards enable glissandos closer to mimicking the upright bass? What about five, six, or even twelve-string basses?)

  
She really isn’t any good at playing. Sometimes she asks her mom to drop her off at the music store on her way to the station and Mr. Foster lets her practice on one of the acoustic bass guitars in the back. She tries and tries, but it doesn’t come naturally to her the way that photography does. Her fingers hurt and her hands cramp and she can’t get her rhythm to match Larry Junstrom’s. Still, she tries. For Alice. And for Greg and Vanessa, too.

Vanessa is only slightly better than Belle on the guitar, and it’s only because Greg helps her learn the music better and Doc gives her pointers one Saturday morning when he’s dropping the girls off for their bi-weekly practice. Her fingertips grow calloused and she starts clipping her nails shorter.

“It bothers me when I play,” she explains. “When they’re long. It’s like they get in the way.”

She can’t read the tabulature as well as Belle, but she has a better ear for following along and learning that way. She’s only slightly better than Belle, but that only means she misses less than half of the notes.

Greg is their saving grace, since he actually can read and play the music. Not well, mind you. But probably better than the other three combined. He hits most of the right notes and generally keeps the beat when they’re all playing together. The sound of the keyboard becomes their anchor point as they hack their way through the song.

They practice and practice and practice. For two months on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings, and it’s a week before school starts that Alice declares them ready.

“We sound _good_ ,” she says with a grin.

And Belle shares a look with Vanessa and Greg that Alice doesn’t catch. It’s a look that says, _I’m sorry_ and _Please don’t say anything_.

Because they sound _awful_ . It’s a trainwreck that sounds worse than cars crashing and crunching and wheels screeching on metal rails. None of them can sing very well and only Greg has any real idea what he’s doing. It’s just plain _bad_.

Alice says, wiping a non-existent sheen of sweat from her forehead as she rests her sticks on her lap. “We should put on a concert at the homestead. Invite our families, Mateo, maybe Jamie Dudley. Nedley. Definitely not Deborah, though.”

“Daphne,” Belle corrects. She frowns. “What’s wrong with Daphne?”

Vanessa and Alice wear matching scowls when they hear the name, though it’s Alice who starts to offer her reasoning. “She’s… what’s that word dad used to talk about Chump Hardy at dinner last Sunday? Started with a ‘c’.”

Belle thinks. She always likes listening to Doc; he uses really old words that she sometimes doesn’t know, and his definitions for them are always interesting. She thinks of all the less than friendly adjectives that she’s heard come out of her uncle’s mouth recently. “Contemptible? Cantankerous?” Alice shakes her head. “Churlish?”

There’s a snap of fingers and Alice’s scowl morphs into a pleased smile.“Yeah! That one. Daphne’s _churlish_.”

“What’s that mean?” Greg asks, looking to Belle for an answer like he almost always does these days when it comes to words he doesn’t know.

“It _means_ ,” Alice huffs. “That she’s rude and mean and inbred.”

“Doc said ‘ill-bred’,” Belle says, not that her cousin listens to her.

“Potato, tomato. We’re going to have a _concert_.”

Alice is oblivious to the nervous expressions on her friends’ faces.

 

-

 

**_caught up in you_ **

 

The date for the concert is the following Saturday. Mr. Foster agrees to let them borrow the instruments for the day, stipulating that if they break it, they buy it. On the morning of the big day, he helps them load the drum kit and the amps into Dolls’ SUV and the keyboard and the guitar and the bass into the bed of Nicole’s truck. Before they leave, he tells them in no uncertain terms that Wynonna Earp is not to be allowed to touch any of the instruments or the equipment.

He makes the sheriff swear on her badge.

Wynonna, Waverly, and Doc are there to help them unload when they arrive back at the homestead, and the first thing out of Nicole’s mouth as she hops out of the car is, “What’d you do to make Harold Foster hate you?”

Of course, she’s talking to the oldest Earp, and when Wynonna goes to help Doc with they keyboard, Nicole grabs a fistfull of leather jacket to hold her in place. “You’re not allowed to touch any of the equipment or instruments,” she repeats Mr. Foster’s words. “He made me swear on my badge.”

“Yeah… Foster really doesn’t like me,” Wynonna says with a shrug, but she doesn’t try to help after that.

Alice dictates where everything should go, and her mom sniggers more than once at Dolls’ increasing frustration as she keeps having him move the drum set this way or that until it’s just so. Belle unwinds an extension cord from the house to the amps and the keyboard. She has to set up her new digital camera on a tripod, too, so they can record their concert. _“For posterity,”_ her cousin had said after Belle explained what it meant. Jeremy shows up a few minutes later with a trunk full of extra folding chairs and starts placing them in the area that Alice has designated for the audience, moving them when told to do so by their young taskmaster.

“Earp, your kid is bossy,” Dolls says when he has to move both amps again.

“She is my child, too, Deputy,” Doc grumbles as he angles the keyboard toward the other instruments.

“She is,” Dolls concedes. “But she’s also definitely an Earp.”

“That’s right,” Wynonna cheers from a rocking chair on the porch. “Baby girl knows what she wants.”

People start arriving soon after. Greg shows up with his mom, saying that his dad is with his younger sister at a softball tournament. Vanessa comes with her parents. Then there’s Nedley, who brings Mateo and Jamie through Alice’s request.

Belle bounces up to Mateo and Jamie, who are standing awkwardly together as the adults mingle and talk. “Hey,” she grins at Mateo. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry if it’s weird that Alice asked Mr. Nedley to drive you, but you said your parents couldn’t and well…”

“No big deal, Haught,” Jamie says and she reminds Belle of a younger, rougher Wynonna. The kind of girl that’s probably, most definitely trouble with the charm to get you to go along with whatever she plans. Maybe a little like Alice, then. She imagines that’s why they’re friends. “Where should we sit?’

“Uh, you can sit anywhere. I don’t think Alice made up a seating chart?” Belle answers, and Jamie nods and walks up to where Alice is standing in front of the drums, surveying the crowd. She smiles a smile that Belle hasn’t seen before, and she wishes she had her camera to capture it.

Mateo pokes her in the side. “Earth to Haught,” he says and her attention snaps back to her friend. “Are you excited to start school?”

That’s their common denominator — their love for learning. They got to work out of special workbooks during math because they already knew how to do long division and multiply large numbers and work with fractions and decimals. And Mateo isn’t as good a reader as Belle, but he also likes _Star Wars_ and Tolkien and some of the things that Belle likes that Alice doesn’t care for. He’s been her only friend in school since she started because he knows how nice it is to sit quietly, side by side with somebody else while you each read your own book.

“It’s _junior high_ , Mateo. It’s going to be _aces_.” At his lack of reaction, she says, “It means cool. It’s going to be so cool, but I wish you were going to be there, too.”

“It’s okay. You can tell me about all the interesting things you get to learn.”

Belle smiles at him. He’s kind to her and always has been. He wanted to learn more about _Charlotte’s Web_ when she brought it into class in kindergarten. Before the incident with that simple-minded dolt of a teacher. “Yeah,” she replies. “Of course I will.”

“Attention! Attention! Can you guys please sit your butts down?” Alice shouts through cupped hands around her mouth. Jamie sits front and center and Mateo goes to join her after giving Belle a quick wave.

Vanessa and Greg meander toward their instruments and Belle follows suit after starting her camera to record. The bass guitar seems heavier around her neck. It feels strange to be playing out in the open instead of the cramped and dark practice room at the back of the music store. She wonders if maybe they’ll sound better since all the noise won’t be bouncing off the walls around them.

  
(She hopes it does. For Alice’s sake. And for the sake of their audience’s ears.)

  
“Thanks, you guys, for coming to our first ever concert,” Alice announces. “We only have one song to play for you, but we know it’ll be worth the drive out here. And after, my aunts made sandwiches and my Uncle Jeremy baked cookies and brownies and there’s lemonade and beer from Shorty’s. Our band is called ‘Eat My Shorts’ and we’ll be playing _Caught Up in You_ by 38 Special. They’re _retro_.”

The comment inspires some chuckles and a gripe about young’uns from Nedley.

Alice pulls her drumsticks from her back pocket and settles onto the stool before the drum kit. “A one, a two, a one, two, three, four,” she counts off, tapping her sticks together like she’s seen drummers in videos do.

It starts off with Alice and Vanessa opening the song, and both Greg and Vanessa start singing.

 

 _I never knew there'd come a day_  
_When I'd be sayin' to you_  
_Don't let this good love slip away_  
_Now that we know that it's true_  
_Don't, don't you know the kind of man I am_  
_No, said I'd never fall in love again  
But it's real and the feeling comes shining through_

 

Belle focuses on her fingers on the fretboard instead of the audience because already she can see the forced smiles her moms are putting on. She realizes that the ability to fake enjoyment varies significantly from person to person; Jeremy has a terrible poker face, and her mom’s cheeks seem to pinch and she does a nodding thing with her head as if to try to help them keep the beat.

Because by the time they’re halfway through the first chorus, she can tell that she’s a couple beats behind and Vanessa is lost and Greg is trying to drag them through to the end of the song. Alice, of course, is having the time of her life, grinning wildly from behind the drums and clearly into the music.

 

It’s worse than a trainwreck. It’s like an airplane crashed into a train that then went off the rails.

 

Somehow they make it to the end of the song with Vanessa making up the last minute of the guitar part while Belle tries to stay along as best she can, keeping to Alice’s erratic rhythm. But they make it, and everybody claps for them.

“Right! Food and drinks inside!” Wynonna says, pointing toward the house, though she holds back as everybody starts in that direction.

Nedley claps Nicole on the shoulder and offers her a sympathetic look as he ushers Mateo and Jamie after the rest of the group that’s led by Jeremy. Dolls gives Wynonna a similar expression as he passes by her and Doc on his way into the house.

“You guys, that was… great,” Waverly says with a plastered on smile. “Really… nailed it.”

“Nailed it into the ground, more like,” Wynonna mutters under her breath. None of the kids hear it, thankfully, but Nicole does and she elbows her sister-in-law hard enough that she swears.

Doc shakes his head; the antics of those two will never grow old just as they will never grow up. “My darling girls, Miss Vanessa, Greg,” he says. “I think that was a mighty fine endeavor. Mr. Foster said that you all practiced diligently these past two months.”

“You did good,” Wynonna says, locking eyes with her own daughter. “You did good.” She catches Belle’s gaze when she repeats her words, as if she knows that her niece didn’t tell Alice on purpose. It’s approval.

Nicole’s enthusiasm is a little more forced than her wife’s. “Yeah. Great job, you guys! Now who wants lunch and dessert?”

Vanessa and Greg quickly abandon their instruments to follow Nicole and Wynonna inside.

“I’ll be back with Dolls in a second to help you load the cars back up, Henry,” Nicole yells over her shoulder. Doc waves her off and starts packing up the keyboard to load first.

“Thanks for helping with all this, Doc,” Waverly says softly. “We really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, thanks, dad,” Alice says, and she still wears her elation on her face. Her sticks are still in her hands.

Belle nods in agreement and gives the man her own shy smile. “Thanks, Doc.”

“It was my pleasure, ladies,” he replies with a touch to the brim of his hat.

Waverly reaches out to squeeze Alice’s shoulder as she sidles past the drum set. “I’ll see you two inside?” she asks and they both dip their heads in acknowledgment.

Still sitting on her stool, Alice sighs contentedly. Her eyes flutter closed and she lifts her head toward the clear sky above. “That was bangin’,” she breathes.

“Definitely something,” Belle agrees. “Can we go eat, drummer girl? I want a brownie before Aunt Nonna eats them all.”

“Jeremy already set one aside for you,” Alice tells her. “And I want to watch the recording first.”

“Crap!” Belle lifts the bass strap over her head and carefully places the instrument on its stand before hurrying to her camera where it’s still recording. She stops it, glad to see that it hadn’t run out of memory or battery during their performance. She’ll have to delete all the extra commentary at the end if they decide that they actually want to keep evidence of this disaster.

“What’s wrong? Did it not record?”

Belle shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. Do you really want to watch the recording now?”

She knows that as soon as Alice sees and hears how poorly they played that she’ll be upset. And for once, Belle knows that she can be brave, knows that she can help protect Alice from that sadness and disappointment. She wants to be able to do that for Alice and for all the other people that have been there for her.

Because she doesn’t need to carry a backpack everywhere anymore. She doesn’t need to be afraid all the time, and while she knows it isn’t that simple — it isn’t that easy to get over the crap that she’s lived through and had to try to overcome — she thinks she can take that step forward. She wants to take it. Forward. Always.

“I wanna watch it. I wanna see how clutch we are.”

Alice peels herself away from the drums and walks toward Belle and the camera still on its tripod. She watches as Belle presses the buttons on the back and navigates through menus before pulling up the video.

It starts with the chatter of their families and friends and then moves into Alice’s introduction of the band. The madness starts not long after. Belle doesn’t watch the screen; she watches her best friend’s face that shifts through a myriad of emotions during the four and a half minute song. From excitement to confusion. From horror to embarrassment and finally to disappointment.

“Were we really that bad?” she whispers, and her voice cracks. Belle hasn’t heard her sound so small before, hasn’t seen her shoulders sag quite like this before. She slings an arm around her shoulders, squeezing softly when Alice rests her head on Belle’s shoulder. “That was… we were _awful_.”

Belle nods. “Yeah… kinda.” She doesn’t try to hide it now. Alice knows. She finds Doc’s eyes on hers, and he smiles proudly at her. He drifts inside, leaving the instruments for later, after they finish their conversation.

Because Alice is upset and they need a moment to themselves. Belle needs to explain.

“Did you know? Why didn’t you tell me we sucked?” Alice pulls away, hurt in her eyes mixed with something like humiliation and shame.

“It doesn’t matter that we sucked. You were having fun. You _loved_ being in a band this summer. And I had fun, too, even if we were terrible. I mean, we probably shouldn’t quit our day jobs—”

“We’re in school. We don’t have jobs,” Alice points out.

Of all the things to catch her attention.

“It’s a saying,” Belle says, even though she knows that Alice knows and that her cousin is just being annoying. “It was fun for the summer. I got to know Vanessa and Greg and I got to hang out with my best friend and try something new. It was brave, Al. You make me brave and you look after me and make sure I’m okay. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, too. I can do that. I can be the protector, sometimes, especially if it means that you get to have fun.”

“But we sucked,” she repeats again, dejection heavy in her tone.

“We had fun.” Belle shrugs. “That’s enough for me. But I’m not sure I’ll try to play another instrument ever again.”

Alice snorts. “Me either if I was _that_ bad.”

“We were all bad. Well, except maybe Greg. He can’t sing to save his life, though.”

“Yeah, well…” Alice shrugs, eyes flickering toward the house and the laughter inside. “First one inside gets the other’s cookie!” She bolts, leaving Belle confused for a split second before she grabs her tripod with the camera still attached and follows after Alice.

Because that’s what they do. They follow each other, one after the other and sometimes side by side. Ride or die, right? Ride or die.

 

 _And baby it's true_  
_You're the one_  
_Who caught me and taught me  
You got me so caught up in you_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta, l_grace_b, for looking this over for me and for being a pretty swell person. And thank you to teamsera for putting a band AU in my head. (This tribute was going to be something else entirely before that plot bunny spawned in my brain.)
> 
> Thank you again, all of you, who take the time to read these found family stories. You’re awesome.
> 
> And once more, a round of applause for Pirate and Smurf.


End file.
